06.28.18

Community, News, TVP

By Chip Meakem

Congrats all AppNexians for building the platform and team that will now be the backbone of AT&T’s digital advertising strategy. Thanks to Michael R, Jon H, Nithya D, Ryan C, Catherine W, Ben J, Tim S, Pat M and hundreds of incredible people across the globe.

In the spring of 2008 I sat down with Brian O’Kelley to learn about his new company AppNexus. About 10 minutes into that meeting I knew I wanted to invest and was lucky enough to do so and join the board. Brian is one of the few people in the world who has the:

– Vision to transform a market
– Guts to start a company
– Chops to cut the code
– Presence to recruit a world class team
– Leadership skills to scale and run a large company
– Humility to ask for help and admit mistakes
– Balls to knock down a huge exit for the team and investors

Brian has it all and then some.

On Monday I was honored to attend the all hands meeting at AppNexus announcing the acquisition. Before the meeting I took a few laps around Madison Square Park. I had my own start up in the same neighborhood back in the ‘90’s. I used to walk around that park once in a while to clear my head. Back then it was a dust bowl with dead trees, broken benches and needles lying in the dirt.

On that crisp morning of June 25, 2018 the park was absolutely beautiful with green grass, modern art, playgrounds, happy dogs and yes…Shake Shack. The living metaphor for the flourishing NYC Tech community was right there in front of me.

As Brian Lesser from AT&T said, they searched the globe for the best platform and team in the space. They found it at 28 w23rd Street, right above the Home Depot. While obviously amazing for the AppNexus family, this one is a win for all of us in NYC Tech.

We created Tribeca Venture Partners to support NYC Tech. So far so good.